Quote:
Originally Posted by Paisley
Less likely to require hospitalization, yes, but still consuming much needed resources. Non-COVID patients are absolutely being impacted.
I was diagnosed about 10 months ago. I've had 3 related surgeries since then. All 3 had scheduling issues because of COVID. The cancer center I go to (which houses oncologists, surgeons, and provides chemo) has reduced its patient capacity. Cancer patients need these appointments, and timing matters.
It's not just hurting the people who decline to get vaccinated.
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I'd shared some of this earlier, but to drive home the point:
I was diagnosed with colon cancer in December and had surgery just before Christmas. My chemo started last week. In many ways, straddling the worst of Omicron, this was great timing, because a little later and the surgery would have been more of a problem and a little earlier and they would have delayed the chemo.
The hospital was impacted in a whole lot of ways. All single rooms were reserved for Covid patients, and so there were covid patients on every floor; the rooms usually set aside for cancer patients, altogether in one building where there would be oncology specific staff 24/7 and where the resources were tailored to cancer care, were filled with Covid patients, cancer patients went back in the other buildings where they had non-specialist staffing and where things like doing our blood work (we get a lot of blood work) went through the regular lab instead of a lab that gave us accelerated service (so the blood work was ready when the doctor was available - this sounds small, but it can be the difference between having a critical issue dealt with in one hour and in twelve hours). This also meant immunocompromised people couldn't be segregated from a population that had all kinds of life threatening stuff (when you have cancer, a cold can sometimes be what kills you).
Every appointment I had got changed. Often last minute. Several appointments where I needed blood drawn and tests run were done over days (me visiting one place for a blood draw, then needing to do a virtual pre-visit, then having the visit itself) when normally they would have been all at once.
For me, looking back, the problems turned out to be modest and manageable. Unfortunately, I know at least one person, the spouse of one of my partners, for whom these kinds of things resulted in death. Because an issue that would have been managed most times in normal circumstances spiraled out of control in a short period of time (the problem was mucositis - mouth sores - she literally choked to death on a mass of swollen infected sores in her throat).
